If Uncanny Inhumans is the flagship title to lead the charge of the wave of books concerning our Inhuman friends, then with the help of Charles Soule, Steve McNiven, and the rest of the art team, it’ll be a welcome change of pace for the Marvel Universe.
Ultimate X-Men #7-9 goes for a more political look at the well-worn “mutant as a metaphor for oppressed minorities” story by making the formerly shady Weapon X folks completely aligned with the US government even if members of the government and military want to shut them down.
Mark Millar and Adam Kubert’s work on Ultimate X-Men #1-3 really is the blockbuster action take on the X-Men, but there is enough flashes of characterization, pretty layouts (Not so much those ugly leather costumes.), and clever twists like Wolverine being a bona fide villain and Colossus’ old crime boss supplying Magneto with a nuke. It’s not a particularly deep comic and scratches the surface of the idea of “post-humanism”, but Ultimate X-Men #1-3 is adequate popcorn entertainment, which led to it selling like hotcakes. (Ultimate X-Men #1 was the number one book in December 2000 with 117,085 copies, and issues 2 and 3 stayed in the top 3 with numbers around the 90,000 range.)
Astonishing X-Men “Gifted” is one of those storylines that will make long term X-Men fans purr with delight beginning the Claremont era flashbacks in issue one. (Cassaday mimics Byrne’s art quite well.) It also can turn fans (like me five years ago) of the films and cartoons into mutie and comics junkies. Whedon pays homage to older X-Men stories without getting mired in continuity and quickly places his own stamp on the franchise by creating a new alien foe for them (Ord of the Breakworld), exploring the mutant as outsider metaphor with the cure of the X-gene, giving SHIELD a new branch (SWORD), and also bringing a beloved character back from the dead (Colossus) in a touching, visceral way that serves the long term storyline. However, the best part of Astonishing X-Men “Gifted” other than John Cassaday’s detailed, cinematically composed art and Whedon’s insanely quotable dialogue is the character arcs for each X-Man nestled in the bigger plot.
All-New X-Men #31 Written by Brian Michael Bendis Art by Mahmud Asrar Colored by Marte Gracia and Jason Keith Published by Marvel One of Brian Michael Bendis’ unique gifts as a writer is crafting believable teenage dialogue. This can mostly be seen in his 14 year run on Ultimate Spider-Man, but he also uses it to great effect in All-New X-Men. …
New X-Men #114-116 Writer: Grant Morrison Penciller: Frank Quitely Inker: Tim Townsend (114-115), Mark Morales (115-116), Dan Green (116) Colorist: Brian Haberlin (114-115), Hi-Fi (115-116) Publisher: Marvel Comics In 2001, the X-Men were both everywhere and nowhere. Bryan Singer’s X-Men film had been released the previous year and was a commercial and critical success. It showed that superhero films …
Beast Directed by Christoffer Boe Written by Christoffer Boe Denmark, 2011 Everybody enjoys a well told love story. The sub genre, less prominent perhaps, is the doomed love story, the ones in which the two protagonists do not get exactly what they want by the film’s end. It can be played in such a way …
It is that time of year again. Mid-to-late July means two things if one is a film fan either living or visiting the city of Montréal. The blockbuster season is in full swing, although that can be applied to just about any city in the universe, and the Fantasia film festival is mere days away. …